The Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Synthetic Genomics was established in July 2018. It is focused on key scientific issues such as genome design, synthetic reengineering, and artificial regulation of different species. The lab is working on developing key technologies and analyzing the essence of life to build scientific support for major applications, such as disease diagnosis, treatments, and efficient large-scale synthesis of drugs. All these could advance the innovative development of the biolog

Therapeutic synthetic microbes are a new, safe, and effective personalized “smart” drug, which can be used for the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. The research involves artificially synthesizing or engineering microbes (such as bacteria, bacteriophages, and viruses) from the ground up and enabling them to obtain new biological functions.

Therapeutic synthetic microbes are created by the intersection of two trending fields—synthetic biology and human microbiome. The goal is to quickly translate the scientific and technological breakthroughs in synthetic biology into applications for the medical industry. Therapeutic synthetic microbes can protect human health in various ways. For example, (1) synthetic bacteriophages can specifically attack pathogenic bacteria, especially multi-drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria infection; (2) tumor targeting synthetic bacteria and synthetic oncolytic viruses can effectively attack cancer cells and treat tumors; (3) synthetic bacteriophages or bacteria can “edit” the human microbiome, performing specific metabolic functions and intervening in diseases that can cause microbial chaos in the human body.

The proposed engineering laboratory will conduct personalized drug R&D by building the first complete, automated and high-throughput SynBiofoundry (Synthetic Biology Automated Synthesis Workshop) in China to rapidly synthesize and evolve therapeutic synthetic microbes. While improving the component library of synthetic biology, the technology platform will fully integrate the research foundations of laboratory members in microbial physiology, microbiology, bioinformatics, genome editing, metabolic pathway design and regulation, analytical methods, disease models, etc. The development of the laboratory will enable China to take the lead in establishing an automated and high-throughput synthetic biology technology platform. It will also greatly speed up the R&D process of therapeutic synthetic microbes as personalized drugs, rapidly transform the medical and health industry in our city, and improve people’s health.